Experts explain the legacy of GamerGate, 10 years after it started
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"Gamergate was a valuable and terrifying illustration of the sheer adolescent rage that overtakes some men when they discover that something is no longer designed exclusively for them"
I find it a little disturbing that all men in gaming were blamed, when many of these hate campaigns and harassment were from literal children. Many weren't even in the US and there were attempts to change US policy over it.
I saw just as many harassment and doxxing incidents perpetrated from the other side, yet this is explained away and even justified.
It did open many people's eyes to the fact that one-sided thinking has infiltrated our media, movies, and games. It also wasn't the fact that things aren't designed 'exclusively for them' that was the problem.
It's the fact that there were attempts all over the industry to kick men out completely. Just like what we are seeing today, it's never about equity or equality, it's about the power to over take something completely.
The conflation was likely a (successful) attempt to define a binary: either you support journalists, want representation in media that reflects (almost always American) demography, and dislike online abuse. Or you dislike the gaming press, want every video game character to look like Doomguy, and spend your evenings telling women to make you a sandwich. It must all be in the binary that conveniently reflects the wider American culture war and political divide.
Maybe it had to be a binary to avoid the hard work tackling of these big issues individually: look at how many times the author(s) not only hand-wave away "ethics in gaming journalism" but disparage the suggestion. I'd hazard a guess that it's because it's much easier to call people out for sexism than it is to fix the structural issues with the press-publisher relationships.
The fact that the whole subject became a cesspool also kept a lot of people, myself included, from wading into it even if they have things to contribute. I'm not going to risk being called a misogynist or a sexist by suggesting that game reviewers buy their own games and not attend schmoozy press events.
I think that "kick men out completely" is hyperbole, but the "one-sided thinking" is spot-on.
When you make it clear that you don't want a group there, eventually that group will leave.